


Come as You Are

by Keiblade



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Angst, M/M, i will add more once i get this fic actually going, slight homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6202420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keiblade/pseuds/Keiblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Yahaba's college life took an unexpected turn for the worse, he gets placed with a new roommate... and then Yahaba's life reaches rock bottom (seemingly).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Negative Creep

Yahaba’s world ended on a Sunday. It was a bit cliché, as world-ending days went, but that’s what happened.

There was nothing particularly special about Sundays. They were obviously less important than Fridays (the end of the school week and the beginning of the weekend) and much less important than Saturdays (a full day of sleeping in and no worries of waking up early the next day), but Sundays were still fairly special in their own right. For those with faith, it was the day when you would acknowledge said faith and worship. It was also the day when you begrudgingly finished your homework for Monday, as students like Yahaba usually did.

This particular Sunday, the Sunday three weeks into his freshman year of college (that he had _such high hopes for),_ just happened to be when Yahaba’s own little universe imploded in on itself like a neutron star and became a supermassive black hole, sucking in everything around him into a warped pit of darkness.

Everything was fine for three whole weeks—three insignificantly small weeks, in the grand scheme of things—and then it wasn’t.

 

Yahaba didn’t really know what to expect when it came to roommates. He heard the horror stories about bad ones from his sempais that had already gone to university. Oikawa had one that always brought his food back to their room and literally _never_ threw it out, leaving it to sit and make the room smell like rot. Oikawa dealt with that for all of a week before he begged the RA for a room transfer (eventually, he transferred out of the university altogether, because being close to Iwaizumi had become second nature to him over the years, and he didn’t know why he tried to break that in the first place, but that’s a story for another time).

So when Yahaba’s roommate ended up being someone more than bearable, and _not_ anyone with bad hygiene or addictions to extremely shitty music, Yahaba was pleasantly surprised.

Yahaba was even _more_ pleasantly surprised when said roommate was, frankly, wonderful to look at.

Hiroki Ichinose was tall, but not too tall. Taller than Yahaba, at least, and Yahaba was almost 183 centimeters tall. Hiroki had pretty, short-cut, chestnut-colored hair that flipped at the edges and a smile that could light up a room as soon as he entered. Hiroki had an endearing addiction to shirts with English words on them, and Yahaba didn’t have the strength to tell him that most of them didn’t make any sense, and, honestly, Yahaba wasn’t going to complain with how they looked when he wore them.

When he _wasn’t_ wearing them, well, that was an entirely different story. Yahaba usually got the least amount of work done then.

All the aesthetically pleasing attributes aside, Yahaba’s favorite thing about Hiroki was that he loved volleyball. Once the subject had come up amidst friendly conversation between the two, and Yahaba had explained that he’d been a setter on his own high-school team, Hiroki’s usual bright smile became blinding as he went on at length about being a wing spiker. Yahaba felt warmth in his chest, and couldn’t help but think that they were so _complementary._ From that moment on, he couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Yahaba felt some trepidation at that, as he usually did when it came to the subject of who and what he was attracted to, because for some reason a great portion of the world still had a problem with it. However, he had all of high school to come to terms with himself, and the world was slowly changing to accept this… right?

So Yahaba let himself feel smitten with Hiroki, because what harm could it bring? Over the course of the first two weeks of school, they would hang out _everywhere._ Hiroki had found a recreational volleyball team to be a part of, and Yahaba joined him whenever he could, trying to find an excuse here and there to pat Hiroki on the shoulder for a nice spike, or help him stretch whenever he needed it.

Maybe Yahaba was imagining it, but he almost thought that Hiroki may have been dropping a couple hints occasionally as well. He could dream, after all.

The only time that they _weren’t_ together was when they were in class, since they were majoring in completely different subjects—Yahaba in English and Hiroki in Business—and that was when Yahaba had quality discussion time with Watari Shinji, who had grown very familiar with the “Hiroki Situation,” as Watari had coined it.

It was Friday, the special day that started the weekend, and Yahaba was bobbing his knee anxiously as he watched the clock tick down—slowly but surely—to the end of class.

Watari snickered beside him, taking careful notes (since he knew Yahaba wasn’t paying attention, anyway) and nudged Yahaba, who was jostled out his trance with the clock above the whiteboard.

“Dude, you’re gonna’ make _me_ anxious if you keep doing that.” Watari chided.

Yahaba huffed a breath that was as fidgety as he was. “I just… do you really think I should do it?”

“If you don’t make a move already, I’m gonna’ have to do it _for_ you. Watching you deal with your schoolgirl crush is giving me angina.”

Yahaba did his best to pretend like he was paying attention as he whispered harshly to his friend, “But I don’t know if he even _likes_ me that way! What if he’s straight?”

Watari shrugged, dutifully writing down the teacher’s words. “You’ll never know until you ask, right? So just _ask._ Put yourself out there, and if he likes you, then _hum hallelujah._ If he doesn’t, then you’ll finally know and you can just move on.”

“The game’s not even ‘till _tonight…_ I don’t know how I’m going to deal until then,” Yahaba said with a sigh.

“You’re smart,” Watari said around his pen, “you’ll find something to do to bide the time.”

Right as Yahaba was contemplating what _exactly_ he was supposed to do for five hours, ten minutes, and… thirty-eight seconds until the evening volleyball game he would be attending with Hiroki, the bell rang, dismissing class.

On cue, the guy with the expression so-sour-it-could-kill sprang up, pulled his hood over his head, and stormed out like he had a bone to pick with the world, books already stored in his backpack and over his shoulder. Watari and Yahaba had made a game of it, seeing how close he was each time to leaving on the hour. Along with perfectly written notes, Watari kept a daily log of the exact time the guy would spring up from his chair and leave, and it was right on the mark every time (no matter when the professor actually dismissed class). Watari smirked and wrote a small “14:15” next to the date: Friday, September 4th.

It was just one of those things friends did to get through class every day.

Yahaba silently rejoiced at the end of his classes for the day, storing his books into his bag while Watari watched, giving an exasperated sigh at his expression.

“It’s gonna’ be _fine,_ Yahaba. Look what you’re doing to me!” He tapped pointedly at his chest, giving his best pout. “Angina. Chest pains. Because of you.”

Yahaba blinked. He put a hand over his chest, his expression flat. “I am sorry that my childish crush is giving you heart trouble.”

Watari rolled his eyes exaggeratingly, adjusting his backpack on his shoulders and giving a playful grin to his friend. “Breathe. Be a man. Tell him how you feel. And make sure to tell me how it went afterward.”

Watari walked Yahaba back to his dorm on the way to class, leaving Yahaba four hours, forty-three minutes, and however many seconds (Yahaba was trying not to check his watch so much) to do lord knows what to pass the time.

He was gonna’ be fine… right?

 

Yahaba found out—quite quickly after arriving to the game, in fact—that he was not going to be fine.

He had done some mental building-up as he picked out his clothes (after an hour of trying on at least three different shirts and two pairs of pants, finally settling on one combination that he saw being _flattering_ ), some more as he walked to the stadium where the volleyball match would be, and even more when he waited for Hiroki in the lobby, who said he would be a little late (he had a late class on Fridays). He thought this was plenty of time to construct the fortitude needed to deal with what he was going to do tonight.

“Hey, Yahaba, over here!”

Yahaba took one look at Hiroki and almost frowned at how _not_ ready to see Hiroki he actually was. He settled for his mouth being slightly ajar and his eyes wide in shock instead.

Hiroki usually went with one of his English-phrase t-shirts and some khaki shorts as his go-to outfit for the day. It was still fairly warm in the beginning of September, and there was no practical need to wear anything more.

 _Tonight_ , to Yahaba’s awe (or horror, however you want to look at it), Hiroki was wearing some slim-fitting brown pants, some Sperries, and a red plaid flannel with a white undershirt underneath that hugged in _all the right places oh god—_

“Dude, you didn’t have to wait for me!” Hiroki said with one of his award-winning smiles.

Yahaba found himself sputtering and prayed to God it wouldn’t show when he actually was able to form words. “Oh, it was n-no trouble. I didn’t want to look like the guy who had no one to sit with, anyway,” Yahaba muttered, and his words only shook a little.

Hiroki laughed brightly, and it was a sweet sound that Yahaba had grown _so_ fond of.

“I guess that’s true, I wouldn’t want you to be looking like a nerd-boy,” Hiroki said with a smirk, lightly punching Yahaba on the shoulder.

A light punch on the shoulder that probably meant nothing should _not_ have given Yahaba a jolt throughout his entire body, buzzing down to his toes, but that’s what happened. He couldn’t help but smile fondly as he rubbed the area where Hiroki had hit him in mock-hurt.

“Come on, game’s gonna’ start, right?” Hiroki asked with a nod towards the entryway.

Yahaba didn’t trust his voice not to waver, settling on an affirmative nod instead, and followed Hiroki into the stands.

 

> _I am FREAKING OUT WATARI. WHY DID YOU TELL ME THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA._

_> > jfc Yahaba i s2g im gonna come over there and smack some confidence into you_

Yahaba had taken Hiroki’s bathroom break during the time-out as a chance to text Watari his current woes, although they were the same woes since earlier today, and had been the same ones for the past who-knows-how-many days now. He felt another buzz from his phone as Watari continued with his ‘helpful’ response.

_> > trust me, you will feel so much better after you confess, just please do it. preferably soon. better yet, TONIGHT._

Yahaba clutched his phone until he thought it would break, and then let the tension out of his body all at once with a sigh.

_> …I’ll let you know what happens._

_> >*prayer emoji*_

Yahaba breathed a laugh at Watari’s text, and then put his phone away just as Hiroki was coming back to his seat.

“So, what’d I miss?” He asked with earnest.

Yahaba shook his head. “Nothing yet, I think the time-out just ended.”

They both grew silent as they watched the two teams gear up to begin again. The score was 26-25, and if the home team scored again, they’d win the match. The opposing team served, and Yahaba watched the ball like it was the only thing that existed. He could feel his old instincts kicking in: where is the ball going to go? Where should it go next? How can they get it back over the net?

Suddenly, the setter called out to his ace as he passed the ball over to him with a jump, and the spiker slammed it down over the net so fast that no one could possibly have reacted to it in time.

The home team had won.

Yahaba and Hiroki, along with the rest of their school, were out of their seats cheering and celebrating their school’s victory. Everyone on the home team was gathering around the spiker, yelling their own praises in excitement.

What caught Yahaba’s attention the most, however, was when the setter burst through the crowd of teammates, picked up the ace, and twirled him around in joy at their win. The setter held him close for a long time, long enough for it to _definitely_ be considered intimate, and the spiker held him back with a dopey, love-struck grin on his face. The best part: everyone on their team didn’t have a care in the world about what other people seemed to think about their relationship.

Yahaba didn’t even realize he was smiling until he saw Hiroki’s expression, and then the smile slid off of his face like it was never there.

Hiroki’s face had twisted in disgust, and he rolled his eyes to amplify the effect. “Ugh, why do people like them have to throw it in everyone’s faces like that?”

Yahaba could feel his heart stopping. Ice was slowly starting to take place in his chest. “W-what do you mean…?”

Hiroki quirked an eyebrow and gestured furiously towards the setter and his ace.

“What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’? Those two _faggots_ down there! Who else would I be talking about?”

Yahaba’s heart shattered in his chest cavity, leaving nothing but cold.

He flinched at the words like they physically hurt him, but Hiroki seemed to pay no mind, standing up and gesturing towards the door.

“Let’s get out of here, yeah? I don’t feel like watching them do it on the gymnasium floor.”

Yahaba could feel the ice spreading throughout his core, the numbness moving with every weak pulse in his veins. He didn’t even look at Hiroki as he went through the motions to follow him, detached.

He thought he might have bumped into someone vaguely familiar, who barked an insult that kind of sounded like “watch where you’re going” as he pulled his hood back up, but he figured it was his imagination.

 

They walked in suffocating silence back to the dorm, Yahaba keeping his eyes glued to the pavement in front of him and his hands in his pockets. Hiroki nudged him with his shoulder a little and Yahaba cringed, flinching.

Hiroki furrowed his eyebrows. “What’s with you, man? You haven’t said a word since the game. Are you feeling okay?”

At that point, Yahaba couldn’t keep up the façade anymore. He stopped walking, balling his hands into fists and gritting his teeth. Hiroki stopped, too. His face appeared concerned and puzzled, not that Yahaba could really tell since he could barely look him in the eye. He felt sick to his stomach.

Hiroki cocked his head (and why did it have to be so _god damn charming, still,_ at a time like this), and pursed his lips. “Seriously, what’s the mat—“

“I’m gay.”

The silence that stretched between them was deafening. When Yahaba finally found the courage to look Hiroki in the eyes (his honey-colored eyes that he always thought were _beautiful)_ , they seemed murky and brown, now. Much less bright and much colder.

“You’re what.” It was more of a statement than an actual question. Yahaba wasn’t used to Hiroki sounding like this.

“I’m _gay,_ Hiroki. I was going to tell you… today…” Yahaba trailed off at the end. What did he expect to happen now? The worst possible scenario had unfolded before him in what felt like an instant. He didn’t think things could get much worse than they already were, and god forbid he keep _that_ part of himself secret anymore. He had for far too long before college, and he wasn’t going to do it again.

“You’re gay.” Hiroki echoed him, no emotion to his voice. His mouth turned up in a scowl as he narrowed his eyes. “Why, exactly, were you going to tell me?”

“Because I like you… well, I _did_ , at least…”

Hiroki didn’t say anything for what seemed like hours, but was actually only about a minute or so. To Yahaba, every second without dialogue felt like an eternity. He found, in this silence, that his heart hadn’t actually ceased functioning, or shattered to pieces, but it still felt like it did. He could feel the methodic pulsing within him, he could hear the muffled beats in his ears and his attempts at steady breathing.

Hiroki’s face didn’t change as he spoke. “I don’t think we should hang out anymore.”

Yahaba nodded, because that’s the only response he could think of. His eyes felt hot.

Hiroki turned towards the dorm, “I’m gonna’ find a new roommate,” and left Yahaba under the lamppost, alone.

Yahaba nodded to nothing in particular, accepting his fate, and walked away from the dorm. Breathing steadily was becoming more and more of an issue as he started running.

 

_> Can I come over?_

The response came not even a minute later.

_> >door’s open._

Yahaba walked into Watari’s dorm room with about as much finesse as a newborn deer, finding his way to the futon more from muscle memory than conscious thought. He didn’t know how long he sat there, head in his hands, before Watari slowly sat down next to him on the futon—making sure to give him plenty of space. All the sound between them was made by Yahaba’s watch (that he had been tracking so dutifully just a couple hours earlier), slowly ticking the time away.

Finally, Yahaba spoke, and it came out like a croak. “Where’s your roommate?”

Yahaba still had his head in his hands, but he could make out Watari shifting slightly from his periphery. “He went home for the weekend,” Watari said, moving from the futon to somewhere else in the small dorm room.

Yahaba hummed in response, listening to Watari digging through what he presumed was the fridge. He heard two small clinks, some more shuffling, and then felt Watari sit back down next to him. He felt a small, cold presence on his hand, and peered over his finger-shield to see Watari handing him a soda. Yahaba took it gratefully, opening it without a second thought and drinking a generous amount in one go. The carbonation burned down his throat, and he welcomed the sensation.

“…Do you want to talk about it?” Watari’s voice was gentle, the words floating around him like smoke.

Yahaba blinked in thought, contemplating the soda in his hands like it had all the answers to his current predicament. He sighed, tired, a hand coming up to frustratingly tug at his strands of hair.

“…No.”

He didn’t look at him, but Yahaba could feel Watari’s gaze studying him, reading him and judging how to respond. Yahaba thought he might have opened his mouth a little to speak, but no sound came from his friend’s mouth. After a moment, Watari nodded, and gave a sympathetic smile.

“Okay.”

He flipped on the TV that sat on the floor of the dorm room, and the conversation was effectively over. They spent the rest of the night flipping through the channels (surprisingly, there was nothing good on for a Friday night) and taking turns swigging their sodas. Eventually, they both lost track of the time and realized that most of the Friday ambience had died down, meaning they had probably stayed up ‘till the early hours of the morning. Watari wordlessly brought Yahaba a spare blanket and pillow, patted Yahaba comfortingly on the shoulder, and retired to his bunk for the night.

As physically and emotionally exhausted as he was, it was another hour before Yahaba could finally fall asleep, after his brain had gone over the evening’s events too many times to keep track.

 

(Around four in the morning, Watari had gotten up to use the bathroom, and had to swallow past the lump in his throat from seeing the tracks of moisture on his sleeping friend’s face, but Yahaba never found this out).

 

It’s a full day before Yahaba wakes up again. Technically, he _woke up_ on Saturday, but the events from the night before crashed into him like a tidal wave, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave Watari’s futon or his blanket-shield from the outside world. Watari didn’t seem to mind, simply lounging in his bunk, watching TV, or working on his homework—occasionally sending Yahaba a concerned glance or asking him if he was hungry and saying things like, “seriously, I think you should try and eat something,” or “you’re gonna’ have to shower _eventually_ ,” which Yahaba gave only noncommittal replies to. Eventually, Watari accepted that Yahaba probably didn’t want to move from the general area of the futon until he was ready to, and let him be.

As he predicted, when Yahaba _was_ ready, he got up from the futon. It took him a full day to recuperate, and he wasted a Saturday, but Yahaba had effectively risen from the dead on a Sunday.

Yahaba tried not to think about the irony of this, because it would make him laugh, and he didn’t feel like laughing yet.

He meandered back to his dorm at around nine in the morning, joining the other walk-of-shamers making their own treacherous journeys back home. He supposed he was one of them as well, sporting the same clothes as he had worn Friday night at the game, and what happened was... pretty shameful, in his point of view. His clothes were a mess, and he was sure that his hair and face were somewhat mirroring that effect. He hadn’t actually _looked_ in a mirror since Friday, but the way he was feeling just _had_ to be exuded on his face to some degree.

Once he reached the dorm, he took one look at the six flights of stairs and groaned. There’s not many situations where he would rather take the ancient elevator from the 1980’s, but this happened to be one of them.

A benefit of taking the stairs, as he usually did (even if they made him exhausted at the end) was that his room with Hiroki was the first room on the right from the stairwell. That way, the flight of stairs was the last arduous task he had to accomplish, and then he could easily collapse into his desk chair or his bed with minimal walking afterward.

So when he took the elevator, it took a slightly longer walk from the opposite end of the hall to get to his room. Upon turning the corner, he froze, and figured life would have been just a little bit easier if he took the stairs after all.

At the end of the hall, where his room lied (on the left, from his point of view), he saw a rather unceremonious pile of his belongings outside of the door. He thought ‘unceremonious’, because ‘ceremonious’ would imply that they were put out in the hall with any sort of caution or care. What he saw was his desk sort of shoved against the wall, his backpack upside down on the floor (spilling his pens and pencils) and his other miscellaneous items like pictures, paperweights, and _very expensive textbooks_ thrown about the ground with no particular accordance.

He felt his nails digging into his palms as he stormed towards his things, the hall seeming to warp into an endless chasm. Some of the other people on his floor had their doors open, eyeing the scene and either sending looks of sympathy or, worse, tittering about the whole situation at his behalf.

His door was open, Hiroki sitting at his desk like he didn’t have a care in the world, that (recently _stupid)_ endearing smile on his face for some reason or another.

“So, when you said that _you_ ,” Yahaba jabbed his finger at Hiroki, “were going to find another roommate, you just automatically assumed that _I_ was the one moving out.” Yahaba’s voice did _not_ crack at the end, he was _not_ getting emotional about this, no fucking way.

Hiroki looked over at Yahaba like he had just sprouted another head, giving a chastising snort. “Why the hell would _I_ leave? This is _my_ room. And I’m not the one with the issue, here.”

Yahaba barked a laugh. “Yeah, _you definitely_ are _not_ the one who has an issue.” Yahaba stomped towards Hiroki, and Hiroki used his feet to move his computer chair back in response. Yahaba almost wanted to laugh, but the swift change in attitude from a person he admired just 48 hours ago sent a jolt of pain through his chest.

“You know, you having a problem with who I am is _one_ thing, but I really didn’t think you were capable of _this._ I figured since, y’know, you were eighteen years old, you would actually handle this with the maturity of an adult, and not like a _fucking child.”_ Yahaba hissed the words with more venom than he thought he was capable of.

Hiroki gestured wildly with his arms at his sides in disbelief. “How the hell was _I_ supposed to know when you’d be coming back? I just tried to make it easier for you so you could get your shit and _go._ ”

Yahaba forced himself to breathe in and out. “And you thought ‘making it easier’ involved _throwing_ my shit out into the hall?”

Hiroki shrugged, turning back to his computer nonchalantly. Yahaba could feel his body trembling with poorly contained rage.

A crowd had gathered around their open door, watching the scene in mixed reactions of disbelief and anticipation. Neither of them seemed to notice, though.

“So. Where. _Exactly._ Am I supposed to go?”

Hiroki scowled. “Not my problem…? Do you mind? I’m kinda’ trying to do something here.”

Yahaba glanced towards Hiroki’s computer screen and noticed he was _very_ invested in watching a recent episode of a TV show. Yeah, definitely didn’t warrant interrupting _at all._

Yahaba slammed Hiroki’s laptop screen down and grabbed Hiroki by the shirt collar, dragging Hiroki up to his eye level. (His eyes had lost that shine Yahaba was so captivated by).

 _“Two days ago_ , I was your _fucking friend_. Are you _really fucking telling me_ that everything between us changed _because I happen to be attracted to men?!”_

_“Yahaba-kun, that’s enough!”_

In the end, the RA had been a part of the crowd that gathered around the time that Yahaba was yelling in Hiroki’s face. If he wasn’t separated from Hiroki by said RA, Yahaba was pretty sure he might have gotten violent, and as much as the enraged and hurt part of him wanted to do it then, the vast majority of him didn’t want to hurt Hiroki at all.

All he wanted was for this to end.

The outcome resulted in Yahaba and Hiroki being written up for separate incidents of discordant behavior, a stern warning for Hiroki about disregarding Yahaba’s personal property, and Yahaba being placed with the only single roommate that was available at such short notice.

And this is how Yahaba found himself with his book-bag (the only thing he could carry at the moment), in his dirty clothes and disheveled hair, outside of his new roommate’s door with his RA.

 It was on the first floor this time, at the very end of the hall, near the stairwell that he had grown accustomed to over the past three weeks. Passing the other doors on the way down the hall, he had noticed there were multiple decorations on each door, either to label who lived there or to add their own personal flourish to their school home. They varied from personal nametags to random print-outs from the Internet that they found hilarious, hastily taped to the door in every fashion.

His new roommate’s door, on the other hand, had absolutely nothing on it. All that labeled it was the numbers stamped in white on the top, showing what room it was in relation to the others.

The RA knocked on the door politely, huffing breath out of his nose when he heard some angry curses from behind the door. Yahaba clutched the shoulder strap of his backpack anxiously, wondering why, precisely, the RA was flashing him extremely apologetic looks and smiling a bit more than necessary while they waited for the door to be answered.

The door swung open with ferocity, the world’s angriest college freshman standing in the doorway.

“What?” His voice was gruff—half from sleep and half because it was natural—and intimidating. It wasn’t necessarily intimidating because it commanded any sort of respect, but because his words came out so _angry._

Suddenly, the remorseful expression on his RA’s face started to make sense.

Yahaba took a moment to _really_ look at the room’s occupant. He was tall, but not taller than Yahaba was. He thought their heights differed by only a couple centimeters or so. His hair was a spectacle in and of itself; bleached blonde with two black stripes running horizontally from his ears to the back of his head. If the hair wasn’t enough, his _eyes_ were _soul-piercing._ Savage, golden irises studied him through narrowed eyes, dark circles surrounding the bottom of them and making the gold stand out prominently.

An image of a threatened wolf came to Yahaba’s mind.

A permanent grimace seemed to be the guy’s natural ‘look.’ Not a guy that cared about having frown lines in the future, apparently. For some reason, this guy was wearing a black hoodie even though the daily temperature this time of year reached the yearly temperature in Hell.

Something about that hoodie seemed familiar…

Yahaba’s RA finally found the courage to speak again, after facing this guy’s stare head-on and living to tell the tale. “Good morning! H-how are you doing today?”

The blonde quirked an eyebrow, his gaze shifting between the RA and Yahaba for a moment.

“…Peachy.”

“Great! So, we have some good news for you today, Kyoutani-kun! Yahaba-kun here needed to switch rooms for personal reasons today,” Yahaba cringed at the use of _personal reasons—quite_ a gentle phrase, for the whole scenario that occurred—“and you still need a roommate, so—“

“No.”

The RA balked at the blonde’s (who apparently was named Kyoutani) interruption. Yahaba shifted uncomfortably, having had enough of being unwanted for the past two days.

“I like having the room to myself, I don’t want _him_ in here,” Kyoutani spat.

“Well, you weren’t exactly my first choice, either, _asshole.”_ Yahaba retorted, matching Kyoutani’s venom with ease.

The RA pinched the bridge of his nose, just letting himself breathe for a second. “I’m really sorry guys, but this is non-negotiable. Kyoutani-kun, you didn’t request a single room, and the fact that you haven’t had someone fill the vacant spot yet is pretty surprising, but a blessing in disguise. Yahaba-kun, you obviously can’t go back to your old room, and Kyoutani-kun’s room is the only double available at the moment.”

They both groaned at the same time, and, for some reason, the RA found it amusing. Yahaba (and Kyoutani) scowled in his general direction.

“Just stick it out, for a little while, at least. I’ll see if I can’t find another dorm you can stay at in the future, Yahaba-kun. For the time being, please, _please_ try to get along. Who knows? You guys might end up having some common interests!”

Kyoutani scoffed. “Doubt it.” He moved away from the door and sulked back down at his desk, presumably coming to terms with the idea and letting Yahaba come inside.

Yahaba gave the RA one last pleading look before he mouthed _sorry_ and opened the door to the stairwell to go back to his floor.  He gave Yahaba a thumbs up, which Yahaba had no idea what to do with, and disappeared up the stairs.

Yahaba looked up at the ceiling, contemplating the universe and his life choices from childhood that led him to this point, and then cautiously entered the room and shut the door behind him. Kyoutani didn’t have too many belongings, as it appeared. He had occupied the desk on the right, and on top of it sat Kyoutani’s laptop, a couple textbooks, and a lamp that had seen better days. His backpack sat beside it along with a couple of (holy shit, _30 pound)_ dumbbells. His dresser had clothes hanging off the edges of the drawers, exploding with different t-shirts and athletic shorts and sweatpants. On the dresser was a stick of deodorant, some store-bought bleach for his hair, and a pair of boxing gloves. That was about it, as far as Yahaba could see.

Yahaba took the empty desk on the left for his own, set his book-bag down, and stared at the wall for a little bit, because his brain really couldn’t handle anything else currently.

“Is that _all_ of your stuff?” Kyoutani asked, incredulously.

Yahaba shut his eyes and sighed, still facing the wall. “No, I have more stuff in my old room.” (In the hall, actually, but he didn’t feel like telling Kyoutani all of that). “I have to go get it later.”

“Whatever, just keep to your side of the room and don’t touch my shit.”

When it seemed like Kyoutani had nothing else to say, Yahaba let his head fall onto the desk, having given up entirely.

And thus, the last bit of matter burned out, and the neutron star collapsed inward on itself on a Sunday.


	2. All Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is as it states :3  
> Also: Watari being the best mediator and friend, like always.

When Yahaba was in his third year of high school, he became captain of his volleyball team. As much as he pleaded with Oikawa to reconsider, because he in no way thought he was even remotely equipped to guide a whole new group of first years _or_ his past teammates, Oikawa wouldn’t hear of it. Oikawa had believed in his ability to do great things, for some odd reason, thus Yahaba was given the position. As terrified as he was at first, as per usual with becoming the boss for the first time, he grew to love it, and conquered his fears when he led his team to victory time and time again.

 _If I can guide an entire team and its members, maybe I’m not too bad at figuring people out and what they need,_ became his new mindset.

Kyoutani Kentarou was breaking that mindset _incredibly_ fast.

The main thing that Yahaba found out about Kyoutani, almost immediately, was that he didn’t like him. Like, _at all._

He didn’t interact with Kyoutani much if he could help it, and Kyoutani made his best attempts at the same thing. His bunk was on the bottom, and he had fastened a sheet under Yahaba’s mattress to create a sort-of cave for himself in his bed. He was either in this cave sleeping or on his computer with noise-canceling headphones at his desk the majority of the time they were together.

When they did interact, it didn’t take long for Yahaba to realize whey Kyoutani couldn’t keep a roommate.

Kyoutani had a _serious_ attitude problem. That much was obvious even if you _didn’t_ talk to the guy. It was like the world had turned against him one too many times and he now officially hated everything in it, no matter what it was. Kyoutani also seemed to think that he ran the place just because he happened to have lived by himself first. Every comment thrown at Yahaba had a certain amount of bite to it; depending on Kyoutani’s mood, that could be anywhere from being unknowingly rude to listing off every swear word he knew in Japanese _and_ English.

No, Yahaba didn’t like Kyoutani, and Yahaba figured Kyoutani didn’t like him either. That was fine, because Yahaba put up with his shit for all of a week, and then he had had enough.

It was on a Sunday, ironically enough. Yahaba had started to absolutely loathe that day of the week.

 

Yahaba had never really liked math. Numbers didn’t come as easily to him as words on a page did, and there was definitely more debate allowed when it came to words in a story.

Begrudgingly enough, he was working on his math homework this particular Sunday, willing his brain to start working and help him solve the calculus problem he had been staring at for a good ten minutes. Although, it was hard to focus when a _certain roommate_ was lifting his overly large dumbbells five feet away from him, making the room smell like sweat and constantly distracting Yahaba with continuous movement.

Of course Kyoutani had to _stand_ and _pace the room_ while he bulked up. No, he couldn’t just sit in his _damn chair_ like a _normal person_ so he wouldn’t be in Yahaba’s line of sight every few seconds, because that would make Yahaba’s life _too easy._

Yahaba felt his blood start to simmer underneath his skin with annoyance, tapping his pencil obnoxiously against the papers on his desk. The blonde didn’t seem to pay any mind, much to Yahaba’s dismay, his headphones blocking out any noise from the outside.

“You can’t do that anywhere else but _here?_ You’re making the room smell gross,” Yahaba announced with a considerable amount of sting, feeling his annoyance elevate from bad to worse when he saw Kyoutani _still_ couldn’t hear him when he turned around in his chair.

Yahaba wasn’t sure if it was the calm and focused look on Kyoutani’s face, or just the sum of everything up until this point that pushed him over the edge, but regardless, he acted.

The look on Kyoutani’s face when Yahaba ripped his headphones off of his head, a polar opposite to just seconds ago, probably would have killed an average man, but Yahaba had adrenaline running through his veins like acid rain and he couldn’t bother to give a shit.

“Hey,” Yahaba spat, “there’s this convenient building called a fucking _gym_. Why don’t you go lift your _obnoxious_ weights there instead of where we both sleep so I don’t have to inhale your _sweat_ every time I breathe?”

“Oh yeah?” Kyoutani countered, leaning his weight into Yahaba’s space, “well _I hear_ that there’s a _library_ not even a block away from here, so why don’t you just do your fucking homework _there?_ Maybe then you could actually figure out that half of your answers on that sheet are _wrong._ ” 

 _…Wrong?_ Yahaba sputtered and felt his confidence (and intelligence) waver for a brief moment, the fire in his blood starting to dim. He settled for scoffing at Kyoutani’s remark. “Please, like you have _any_ right to judge my math skills when you got a D on your last English assignment—don’t think I didn’t notice it on your desk! Besides, it’s not like I _want_ to take this class.”

Kyoutani’s face scrunched in confusion. “…why the hell are you taking it if you suck at it?”

 _Because my stupid major makes it a requirement that I take at least one semester of math, you ass,_ Yahaba thought, but he didn’t have the energy for elaborating on that to the scruffy blonde in front of him. He rolled his eyes instead, shaking his head. “It—ugh—it doesn’t matter! I just have to get it done, Kyoutani!”

“Then _leave!_ I was here first, y’know,” Kyoutani growled, his eyes blazing and narrowed.

Yahaba sneered. “God, you would _love that_ , wouldn’t you? You’ve only been trying to kick me out of here since day one!”

Kyoutani balled his hands into fists, baring his teeth. “Of course I have! I was perfectly happy having a single room, and then _you_ come along,” he jabbed his finger into Yahaba’s chest, “and _ruin it_ for me. You’re so _god damn_ annoying, no _wonder_ your roommate kicked you out.”

It was like Yahaba had taken a bullet.

Before Kyoutani could even register what was happening, Yahaba was shoving him against the wall by the shirt collar with a frankly _unexpected_ amount of strength. Kyoutani’s back hit the wall with a dull thud, his chair flipping in the process and cluttering to the ground with a loud _clack_ , but Yahaba held fast and leveled Kyoutani with a glare that the latter met speechlessly and wide-eyed.

Yahaba leaned in closely, exuding the overwhelming amount of anger that Kyoutani had brought to surface, rolling over his skin like waves.

“You don’t know a _damn thing_ about me, or what happened,” Yahaba seethed through clenched teeth, “and I don’t need a jackass like _you_ talking about me like you know me.”

Kyoutani’s eyes were impossibly wide as Yahaba finally let go and backed off, sighing towards the ground and expelling at least some (but not enough) of the negative energy inside of him. A humorless chuckle escaped his lips, mostly out of pure exhaustion with life in general. He ran a hand through his hair, having nothing else to occupy them now that they weren’t pinning Kyoutani to the wall.

“You know what?” Yahaba breathed weakly, “You win. I’m _done._ Have a _great time_ all by yourself in this shitty room with no one but yourself… _good luck_ finding someone who will put up with you longer than I did.”

Yahaba shoved his math homework into his bag and stormed towards the door, catching a brief glimpse of the befuddled and damaged look on Kyoutani’s face before he slammed the door behind him and stormed out of the building and into the fresh air. He eased the tension out of his muscles by slumping against the brick wall, dragging a hand down his face.

Yeah, he didn’t like Kyoutani, and, _yeah,_ he was angry (because of the previous jerk mentioned)… but what Yahaba said left him with a sour feeling in his gut, like a bad case of heartburn. Most likely the blonde had little to no idea of what happened to make Yahaba join him in his abode, unannounced and uninvited. The look on Kyoutani’s face as he left sent that message pretty loudly…

...Whatever.

His pride, however wounded, kept him from going back to his room and fixing an irreparable tear in whatever pathetic smidgen of familiarity they had.

He knew a place where he could study in peace… and it definitely was his _own_ idea to go the library, and not Kyoutani’s.

 

“…so not only does he make the room smell like his B-O, he brings up the whole Hiroki thing, too! I’m just… _ugh.”_

Watari continues writing in his notebook with an unfazed hum as Yahaba lays his head on his desk, lamenting. It had only been about eighteen hours since the confrontation with his spiny roommate, but the wound still felt fresh and raw among the one he was still previously nursing from last week. He hadn’t actually been able to settle anything with said spiny roommate—that would have required Kyoutani being in the room to do that, and he had disappeared by the time Yahaba had morosely returned and didn’t show up the next morning—so that horrible feeling in his gut settled uneasily within him for the entire night. Needless to say, Yahaba didn’t sleep well.

“Are you even listening to me…?” Yahaba whines miserably, his face half-smushed into the books on the teeny college desk in his lecture hall. 

“What I’m gathering,” Watari replies casually as he jots down the topic of discussion on the board, “is that Kyoutani-kun was minding his own business lifting weights, and you got so annoyed that you ripped his headphones _off_ of his head while he was still wearing them and yelled in his face, so he yelled back. Is that about right?”

Yahaba sat up suddenly, an indignant scowl settling on his face like a sudden storm. “Hey, are you saying that this is _my fault??”_

Watari’s expression softened, and he turned to face Yahaba directly after setting his pencil down. “No, Kyoutani made his own mistakes… but I don’t think you’re the only victim, here.”

Uneasiness settled in Yahaba’s stomach under the scrutiny of his best friend’s stare. His gaze wavered between Watari and the last few stragglers coming into the classroom before lecture began. He spotted the ‘hoodie guy’ out of the corner of his eye, but that was hardly a concern at the moment.

“…What are you saying?” Yahaba questioned hesitantly. He wasn’t sure that he’d like the answer, especially coming from someone so level-headed and _unbiased._

“Well, it doesn’t seem like—from what you told me, anyway—that Kyoutani-kun is particularly good at making friends. Maybe his hostility just comes from inexperience in opening up to people, y’know?”

Yahaba quirked an eyebrow when Watari didn’t continue, eliciting a tired sigh from his shorter-but-wiser friend.

“…Yahaba, some of the stuff you said was pretty hurtful…and I think you hurt his feelings.”

“Well--,” Yahaba sputtered defensively, “when you take it out of context like that…”

Yahaba’s friend leveled him with an unamused expression that sent a fresh pang of guilt coursing through his belly, and he settled for accepting the brunt of it by burying his face in his hands with a defeated exhale. 

“Yeah, I know… you’re right, like always,” Yahaba conceded between the cage of his fingers.

Watari snorted. “Aren’t I though?” He laughed brightly when Yahaba flashed him a half-hearted glare and threw a pencil at his head.

“What am I supposed to do, Watari?” Yahaba sighed miserably.

His friend gave him a funny look. “You live with him, am I right? Just apologize!”

Yahaba threw his hands in the air dejectedly. “Don’t you think I would have done that by now if I had seen him?”

Watari raised his pointer finger and opened his mouth—“Okay, okay, you’re right, I probably wouldn’t have apologized then—but seriously, I haven’t seen him since last night and I don’t—“

Yahaba froze as his brain’s visual memory caught up with him and connected the stray fragments in his head necessary for understanding the image he was seeing.

His line of sight focused behind Watari—right on the hoodie guy—and suddenly Yahaba came crashing into the realization of why that hoodie was familiar and oh _no WHY did it have to be HIS HOODIE—_

“…Don’t…? What? What are you looking at Yahaba?” Watari questioned, turning his head towards Yahaba’s current focus, only to have his head forcibly turned back by Yahaba’s panicked hands.

“ _Watari_ ,” Yahaba whispered frantically, “the _hoodie_ guy, it’s the _fucking hoodie guy_ , _that’s the guy!!”_

“Wha…?”

 _“The hoodie guy is Kyoutani, Watari! They are the same person!”_ Yahaba shook Watari’s shoulders for emphasis, drawing more than a few concerned looks their way from those sitting near them. Yahaba felt a sudden urge for dropping out of school.

Watari finally got the chance to inconspicuously catch a glimpse of the hoodie guy (aka Kyoutani) when Yahaba peeked around his head like the anxious new kid on his first day of elementary, hiding behind their teacher’s legs. Kyoutani was sitting in the seat closest to the aisle about three rows down on the left side, a small portion of his hair sticking out from underneath the black of his hood. The two parallel rows of black amidst the blonde seemed to bleed into his sweatshirt, almost like it was his second skin he used to hide from the world. There was an obvious empty gap of seats next to him where no other students dared to sit, leaving him—ironically—very noticeable amidst the crowd.

A pathetically hopeful thought of ‘ _maybe it’s ANOTHER kid with bleach-blonde, black-striped hair and a life-is-jank attitude’_ passed through Yahaba’s mind briefly. He almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was.

Watari gave a little hum in surprise. “Really, that’s him? Perfect!”

Before Yahaba could begin to process what his friend meant by that, Watari waved his hand towards the back of Kyoutani’s head with a smile. “Hey, Kyoutani-kun!”

As much as Watari insisted when telling the story later, Yahaba did _not_ shriek like a child and hide under his desk in a panic when Kyoutani turned around with an _offended_ expression at the call of his name, his eyebrows furrowed and a grimace settling into its natural position.

“Do you wanna’ sit with us? There’s an empty seat next to me!” Watari declared. He hissed when Yahaba kicked him in the shins under the desks.

Yahaba put on his best fake smile and nonchalant demeanor, placing his cheek in his hand. “What are you doing, Watari? _Supposed best friend that I’ve known since first year of high school_ Watari?” He seethed through his teeth.

His friend only faltered a _little_ at the rude gesture Kyoutani sent back before he responded to Yahaba, who was currently using the duck-and-cover method under his desk.

“ _Helping_ you. Just stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Heedless to Yahaba’s hushed pleas of warning, Watari strolled to Kyoutani’s seat and sat down in one of the empty spaces next to him, somehow having started a conversation with him. At least, Yahaba _thinks_ he started a conversation with him, judging by Watari’s genial smile and his facial expressions to whatever Kyoutani was muttering one-word replies to.

Yahaba couldn’t help but stare at the interaction, now feeling brave enough to slink back into his seat and observe from afar at the effortlessness his friend had for making others feel welcome. Yahaba liked to think that he had that ability as well. He knew that he had to have had at least a _little_ bit of this skill—He _was_ captain of his volleyball team, after all—but it was obvious that Watari always had a _gift_ for this sort of thing, more obvious now than ever as he talked with someone who’s personality grated like sandpaper. Yahaba’s method of getting things to mesh usually involved some frustration and impatience on his end, whereas Watari’s was smooth, seamless, and blithe.

He settled for the fact that two personalities that had similar harsh qualities would, in all likelihood, end up clashing together like they had. There was no _reason_ to feel insecure about it…

 …It didn’t stop him from feeling it set heavily in his chest, though.

Just as the professor walked into the lecture hall, Watari came back and took his seat next to his friend, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Yahaba nudged him with his shoulder exasperatingly.

“So…?! What happened? What did you guys talk about?”

“Why, Yahaba,” Watari chided with a smirk, “I _hardly_ think that’s any of your business.”

“You know, I regret our friendship so much sometimes.”

Watari snorted. “Alright, alright, relax. I just introduced myself and vice versa, that’s all.”

Yahaba lowered his eyebrows disbelievingly. “…That’s all.”

“Yep.”

“Seriously?”

“What reason would I have to lie about this, Yahaba?” Watari said humorously, a giggle bubbling around the words.

“I don’t know,” the former groaned, “you were over there for a while, I thought you might have _at least_ gotten more than something I already knew.”

“Contrary to popular belief, Kyoutani isn’t much of a conversationalist,” his friend explained easily, like Yahaba had no sense of the topic.

The setter finally drawled out a sigh of defeat and turned to face the board, grumbling under his breath and opening his notebook with half-hearted malice.  

“…Oh! He also mentioned that he was sorry for what happened last night.”

Yahaba turned his head so fast he got whiplash.

“No shitting way. _Kyoutani apologized??”_

Watari brought his voice down to a hush to remind Yahaba that class technically had _started_ already.

“I’m as surprised as you are, dude. I thought he would _definitely_ wait at least until you apologized first. Now just take a deep breath for a hot second and listen to the professor for once, ya’ dink,” Watari lectured, turning Yahaba’s head face-forward.

That effectively ended the conversation between the two, but Yahaba couldn’t stop replaying what his friend had told him in his head. Kyoutani had apologized. Before _him._ On his _own_.

He found his curiosity getting the better of him for the rest of class, letting his eyes wander towards that dark hoodie and bright hair a few rows down from him, where the occupant was properly taking notes and actively paying attention to the professor’s words. It was true that he knew very little about his roommate to begin with, but this showed just _how_ little he actually knew and how much he was just filling in with preconceived notions.

Just who the hell _is_ his roommate? Yahaba was hell-bent on finding out, slowly but surely.

 

Right on schedule, the hoodie guy—Kyoutani (Yahaba reminded himself, once again, of this fact)—had his things already packed and ready to go as soon as the clock read ‘a-quarter-past two PM,’ taking the steps two at a time and heading out the door while Yahaba and Watari were still just now getting ready for the end of class. Yahaba hummed, pondering.

“Do you wonder where he goes?” Yahaba asked Watari, who was still adding the time of Kyoutani’s departure to the ‘log’ in his notebook and storing his other things away.

“Who, Kyoutani-kun?” Watari shrugged as he slid the rest of his belongings off of his desk and into his open bookbag. “Beats me. Maybe he just has another class right after this on the opposite side of campus, yeah?”

Yahaba tapped his finger against his desk, thinking. What Watari said was likely true, but he had so many questions flying around in his head that he could barely concentrate on one, alone. Kyoutani was a freshman like Watari and himself, right? Where would he have gone if he didn’t come to the dorms last night? Did he just sneak in and out without Yahaba noticing? Yahaba doubted that, since he hardly slept at all. A small noise would have woken him up, no question.

But if he didn’t come back, then how did he get a change of clothes and a shower? It didn’t _seem_ like Kyoutani had many friends here… but Yahaba had been wrong before, so he was probably wrong about that too.

His stream of consciousness was interrupted by a small thud to his shoulder.

Watari tapped his chest again with his pointer finger, raising an exasperated eyebrow to his friend.

“You are going to get me sent to Saint V’s. Y’know that, right? I can see it now: ‘Local Frustrated Confidant Ends Up in Hospital from Heart Attack Based on Friend’s Inaction to do the Thing.’”

Yahaba made it a point to roll his eyes so Watari would _definitely_ notice, hoisting his bookbag onto his shoulder and following Watari out of the building.

 

Same as always, Watari walked Yahaba back to his dorm on his way to his next class and they parted ways. He was just about to grab his card-key to get into the building when he noticed a certain roommate of his leaving in a hurry out of the door he was fast approaching.

Yahaba backtracked hastily, but Kyoutani didn’t seem to have noticed him, already bustling towards the direction of the main road that divided campus from the city. 

Yahaba hesitated. He knew that he probably shouldn’t… emphasis on the word _probably._ He knew that Kyoutani would probably (most likely) see this as a giant violation of privacy…

…but his feet were moving in Kyoutani’s direction before he could stop himself.

 

Yahaba followed Kyoutani for almost a mile, sticking to the opposite side of the street to try and stay out of sight until they both reached a more dilapidated part of the city. The buildings outside of the campus area were crumbling, some uninhabited and boarded up with plywood and stained with graffiti tags. Yahaba never liked to venture out here for obvious reasons, and he held onto his belongings just a little more tightly as he continued down the overgrown and fractured sidewalk.

Growing up in a well-to-do household, the tendency to look down on anything less than pristine comes pretty easily. His parents were a prime example of that, Yahaba thought sullenly. Still… never can be too careful. 

Kyoutani, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind the atmosphere in the slightest. He navigated down that street like he had walked it every day of his life, occasionally giving a curt nod to passerby that walked past him, until he finally turned towards a building on the corner of two streets.

Out of all the businesses that Yahaba saw in this part of town, this was the only one with a fully occupied parking lot. The building was in decent shape as well, with a full, fenced-in backyard that he could see out of the corner of his eye.

Before Kyoutani could enter the double doors, an older man in a dark blue uniform came out with his arms crossed and frowning, tapping his opposite wrist furiously with his pointer finger.

From what Yahaba could see, Kyoutani’s scowl grew deeper, taking the heat of whatever this guy was berating him with with his hands in his pockets and his frame going stiff.

Yahaba stayed hidden behind the parked cars in order to overhear a few phrases out of the argument. The first voice he could recognize was the gruff mumble of his roommate.

“…M’sorry… got here as soon as poss—“

 “…the _fifth_ time that you’ve been late, Kyoutani-kun—“

 _…Late?_ _Did Kyoutani have a job?_

“Um.”

The utterance was out of Yahaba’s mouth before he could stop himself, causing the two conversing to turn their heads in his direction.

The look on Kyoutani’s face could only be described as _dumbfounded,_ his eyebrows scrunched and his mouth slightly ajar as he took in the fact that, yes, it was _Yahaba_ standing in front of them, in the middle of a parking lot on the shoddy side of town. The older man slightly mirrored him, his eyebrow raised and his attention fully on the stranger who had supposedly been eavesdropping on their argument.

Yahaba felt his throat dry up. Crap, crap, shitty shit shit, _fuck._ What the hell was he supposed to say now?

“…Can I help you?” The man in the uniform inquired, the flatness to his tone showing an edge of irritation and impatience. His arms had crossed again, one of his fingers tapping against his bicep absentmindedly.

Yahaba shoved his hands into his pants pockets so as not to fidget, and cleared his throat.

“It’s… It’s my fault Kyoutani-kun was late.”

Kyoutani’s eyes narrowed, looking absolutely baffled, his jaw hanging slack. He mouthed a _‘what?’_ to Yahaba out of the corner of his mouth, trying to mask the fact that he had _no_ freaking clue what his roommate was talking about from the man next to him.

Judging by the way he was talking to Kyoutani, Yahaba assumed the man was his roommate’s boss. Now that he got a closer look at him, he saw that the man was wearing scrubs, with his name stitched into the fabric on the top right side: Dr. N. Irihata.

Dr. Irihata’s eyebrows raised, intrigued. “Oh, is that right? Why might that be?"

…Balls.

Why was he doing this…? Why did he _care_ what happened at all? Was this his guilty-ass conscience coming out like word vomit subconsciously? Lord if Yahaba knew.

“Well, uh, Kyoutani-kun is my roommate, and he was telling me about his job here and it sounded really, um, nice, so I thought I would come and fill out an application… but I ended up talking to him too long after class even though he told me he had to leave and... yeah.”

Yahaba was rambling, and rambling never sounded good by itself, but Yahaba’s was _particularly_ terrible. He could hear himself droning on with his poor explanation and stopped before he passed the point of no return, trying to keep from shriveling up and dying right there with no one to witness but an unknown doctor and an asshole roommate.

Out of his periphery, Kyoutani had put his face in his hands and, honestly, Yahaba didn’t blame him.

Suddenly, Dr. Irihata smiled amiably, his whole face lighting up.

“Oh!” He exclaimed, a small laugh vibrating deep in his chest. “You’re here to help with dog-walking! Well, why didn’t you say so?”

A record skipped its track in Yahaba’s mind. _Dog-walking??_

Oh.

Dr. Irihata was a _DVM._ This was a _veterinary_ hospital.

Yahaba had no idea what he was getting himself into, but there was no turning back _now._ From what Yahaba could tell, Kyoutani _needed_ this job. He already screwed up as a roommate… he sure as hell wasn’t going to try and screw up Kyoutani’s _life._

He nodded, flashing the most convincing pretty-boy smile he possibly could.

“Yep! That’s right!”

He almost joined Kyoutani when he let out a groan in misery.

 

Yahaba wasn’t a pet person.

That was entirely in the literal sense of the term, because being forbidden to have a pet his entire life gave him no inkling of an idea on how to _be_ a pet person. ‘Pets made a mess,’ ‘pets rip up the furniture and shed all over your clothes,’ ‘pets are a _huge_ responsibility,’ blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. All of his parents’ excuses every time he _begged_ for a dog or a cat when he was young were all he had to go on when it came to owning one.

Oh _man_ was he in over his head with this one.

In the span of five minutes, he had accepted a position for a part-time job—a job in which he had literally _no_ experience in—and, in the process of trying to mend the breaks between him and Kyoutani, possibly made them worse.

He couldn’t start working right then, but Dr. Irihata wanted to see if he could _at least_ handle walking some dogs properly, so he sent Kyoutani on a mission for the day to keep an eye on his progress. This required Kyoutani to be with him for the next couple hours or so for a work interview.

The way Kyoutani glared and grumbled at Yahaba without speaking a word _poignantly_ illustrated how he felt about this.

On their way to the kennels, after a long, tense silence, Kyoutani surprisingly broke it.

“So it wasn’t enough that you couldn’t stand living with me, you had to come ruin my job for me too?” Kyoutani seethed harshly, grabbing the hanging slip-leashes for the dogs with ferocity he didn’t bother to hide.

“Hey!” Yahaba retorted, “I was trying to help you! Did you just _conveniently_ forget that part, where I very _nicely_ gave you an excuse for being late??” He jogged a little to catch up to the other boy, who was trying to speed-walk ahead of him.

Kyoutani scoffed. “Yeah, and now you made it so I have to see you more than a couple hours a day. Great job. Why the hell were you following me, anyway? Had to see what _delinquent activities_ I was up to?”

“No! I mean, not—I didn’t think you were doing anything _bad—“_

Kyoutani shot Yahaba a look that almost made him stop in his tracks. “Oh, but you thought that at first, right? Just like _everyone_ else does.”

Kyoutani’s voice had dropped down to a level that was _toxic,_ the words sitting in Yahaba’s gut like poison.

Yahaba actually did stop this time, causing Kyoutani to turn impatiently and quirk an eyebrow.

He needed to fix this. Whatever it was.

“…You’re right.”

Kyoutani seemed to just breathe for a second, and after a moment finally turned entirely to face Yahaba. His expression was unreadable, but his body looked like it was coiled in anticipation, waiting to strike.

“…I never should have followed you. This is your private life, and I shouldn’t have tried to interfere in it… and…“

Yahaba crossed his arms, not out of frustration, but for security. “…I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think… y’know… at first—“

Kyoutani started to curl his lip, almost like he was baring his teeth.

“—But that was _really_ ignorant of me. I don’t want to treat you that way, because that’s really unfair. I don’t want to be like that.”

_I don’t want to be like them._

Kyoutani’s head cocked (endearingly) to the side slightly, his stance relaxing. He looked Yahaba up and down with a puzzled look, scrunching his nose.

“…Is this some kind of joke, or something? Last time I checked you hated the fact that I existed.” The way Kyoutani’s question lilted at the end made it seem like he was genuinely perplexed.

Yahaba sighed exasperatedly towards the ceiling and/ or God. He nudged Kyoutani over to the side by placing his hand on his back, and did _not_ subconsciously notice how solid those trapezius muscles were underneath the cotton.

“Look,” Yahaba began calmly, “this may be hard for you to believe, but I honestly have no ulterior motives here. Following you was wrong, but I did it because I thought this might be the only way I could talk to you so I could do what I was _trying_ to do in the first place… which was apologize.”

Kyoutani took a step back, surprised. His eyes were as wide as saucers.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you into the wall… or said the things I said,” Yahaba continued, “I was angry, and I have some residual frustration because of my last—well, from something personal that happened recently. I invaded your space, and you were upset. But the fact is,” he swallowed sadly, “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Yahaba didn’t mean for his voice to crack slightly at the end of that sentence, but he hoped that the distant barking from the dogs covered up his momentary weakness.

“So, can we _please_ try to live in a room together, tolerate our existences, and be our respective asshole selves on our own time?”

Kyoutani stared at him flatly for a moment, before a _tiny_ upturn of the corner of his lip hinted that he might actually be smiling. Maybe.

Yahaba’s roommate shook his head amusedly. “You’re really weird.”

Yahaba shrugged tiredly. “At least we have _that_ in common.”

A small grunt blew out of Kyoutani’s nose as he handed a leash to Yahaba, muttering a small ‘whatever’ under his breath and leading the way to the kennels.  

 

They walked dogs for the rest of the afternoon; Kyoutani having to metaphorically hold his hand through the entire process, reminding him with an obvious roll of his eyes that ‘no, the dogs don’t bark this much all the time, they just know leash means walk’ or ‘yes, _of course_ we have to clean up after them.’ It was a long afternoon of being the new kid, and Yahaba had _so_ much to learn, but he didn’t do too badly for his first time.

Dr. Irihata had him fill out official paperwork, after all, so he couldn’t have done _awful._

They walked back to their dorm together in the early evening, Kyoutani stomping ahead of him with his hands in his pockets. Yeah, Yahaba didn’t expect his roommate to suddenly be ‘warm and inviting’ after a few hours of slight interaction, but he feels like there should be at least… a _little_ improvement, right?

Right before the two of them reached their dorm, Kyoutani started to head towards the main part of campus, not speaking a word.

Yahaba wanted to break something over how much his roommate _insisted_ on being a grumpy enigma.

“Where are you going??” Yahaba called, “we have English homework!”

Kyoutani regarded him, clicking his tongue. “What are you, my mom? I did it already.” He turned to walk again, giving a disregarding wave over his shoulder. “I’m going on a run.”

Yahaba threw his hands in the air and turned towards the dorm, _supremely_ miffed.

So much for _that._

“…Hey.”

Yahaba pivoted on his feet when he heard Kyoutani’s voice behind him, seeing his roommate facing towards the center of campus and fiddling his fingers at his side, trying to give them something to do.

Kyoutani turned his head _just_ enough for Yahaba to be able to tell that his expression was _sincere._ It sent a chill down his spine. “…I really need that job, and I probably would have been screwed if you didn’t give that excuse, so… thanks.”

Yahaba watched Kyoutani jog away into the last of the fading light then, and he watched the empty space Kyoutani had occupied for a _long_ time before heading back to his room, enlightened at the small glimpse he was able to get into who Kyoutani Kentarou really was.

 

The next day of their English lecture, Watari wouldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the class when Kyoutani had sat down next to them with a juvenile huff.

He also couldn’t stop laughing when Kyoutani had asked about the numerous recordings of ’14:15’ in his notebook and Yahaba had scrambled to shut it closed.

 

Time went by with more of the same, Yahaba getting a hand for properly handling the pets with Kyoutani’s and Dr. Irihata’s guidance, and school progressively getting more and more stressful for upcoming exams until it finally reached October.

Though the two roommates had more time to interact together, their conversations still stayed at a minimum. Watari was right when he said Kyoutani wasn’t a talker, but that was fine. He didn’t need talking, he just needed a roommate that didn’t hate him, especially not for an outdated and ignorant reason. All things considered, their relationship really _had_ improved.

Well, he honestly didn’t know where Kyoutani stood on that subject… but he couldn’t dwell on it.

It was a Friday afternoon, on a _gorgeously_ beautiful day even with the looming dread of exams coming, that Yahaba got a text from a certain former sempai.

Kyoutani quirked an eyebrow, his face smushed into his left hand, at the way Yahaba’s face lit up. “What’s got you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?”

Yahaba squinted aghast at the grumpy blonde next to him. “’Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed’? You sound like my grandma.” Yahaba pointedly ignored the middle finger Kyoutani gave him to show the text to Watari.

“Watari,” Yahaba announced excitedly, “Look!”

**Oikawa-san (** **◕‿◕✿** **) The most BEAUTIFUL sempai <3<3<3**

_> >Yahaba-kun!! Hellooooo!! Me and Iwa-chan just got done with exams and they were so brutallll D: But we both studied (and boned) very hard and we deserve to celebrate ~(^.^~)!!! Let us come and visit and play volleyball and party, please oh please?? Let us get you and Watari-kun WASTED_ _< 3<3_

Watari smiled over Yahaba’s shoulder jovially. “Oh wow, Iwaizumi and Oikawa-sempai are coming this weekend? That sounds awesome!”

“I know, I’ve been dying to play volleyball again for weeks!” Yahaba smiled at the thought. It _had_ been a while, ever since… well...

If Kyoutani had ears that did so, they would have been perking straight up from the way he sat up with pure and genuine interest. “…You guys play volleyball?”

Watari gasped so dramatically that Yahaba almost checked to see if he needed help of some kind. Luckily the case was the opposite. “Kyoutani, do you play volleyball??” He elbowed Yahaba in the waist, who gave a dejected ‘oomph’ with the biggest ‘what did I do??’ written on his face that it was comical. “Why didn’t you tell me that Kyoutani played volleyball??”

“I didn’t know!” He nudged Watari aside and looked at Kyoutani with shock. “Why didn’t _you_ tell me you played volleyball?”

“It… never came up? You never told me _you_ played volleyball!” Kyoutani argued plainly, pulling his hood up and slouching in his seat with a scowl. “This Oikawa and Iwaizumi, are they any good?”

Yahaba and Watari looked at each other and smiled mischievously, remembering that only them and a few select others were able to see the greatness that was Oikawa Tooru and his ace, Iwaizumi Hajime, in action.

“Oh, Kyoutani,” Yahaba purred with a cheshire grin. “Just you wait and see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW REMEMBER ME?  
> I'm SO sorry that this chapter is so late... that won't happen again. Life got in the way and stressed me out to the point where I couldn't write D:  
> I hope you guys like the update!! Let me know what you think!


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